Three more state employees get hefty pay raises thanks to phantom job transfers

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration used phantom job transfers this year to give double-digit pay raises to two employees and a smaller raise to a third, quickly switching them from one post to as many as three others and then back to their original jobs.

The biggest pay increase — $14,416 a year — went to a longtime state economist who helped expose flaws in jobs statistics that were hurting the governor’s recall election chances, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review has found.

It’s worth noting that according to the Journal Sentinel’s report John Koskinen, the chief economist for the state Department of Revenue, will make $23,415 a year more than Dennis Winters, the chief economist at the state Department of Workforce Development.

Interestingly enough, during the gubernatorial recall Koskinen was critical of the federal jobs numbers used at the time to attack Gov. Walker’s poor job creation record, but thanks to Scott Walker’s phantom job transfer, Koskinen will now make 26 percent more than another state employee holding a comparable position.